Factory workers, mill hands, department store clerks, have been granted legislation in almost every State of the Union, regulating hours of work, sanitary conditions, ventilation, and in some cases they have been given protection from dangerous machinery.

In department stores they have been granted even certain special comforts, such as seats on which to rest while not actually working.
Of course, we have done no more than make a beginning in this matter of humanizing the factory and the shop.

But we have made a beginning, and the movement toward securing better and juster and healthier conditions for workers in all the industries is bound to continue.

So long as manufacturing was carried on in the home, no such protective legislation as workers now enjoy was dreamed of.

We had to wait until the workers came together in large groups before we could see their conditions and understand their needs.
Housework, because it is performed in isolation, because it is purely individual labor, has never been classed among the industries.